The Watch - ‘Better Call Saul’ S5E5 and How Reese Witherspoon Cracked the Celebrity TV Code | The Watch

Episode Date: March 20, 2020

Social distancing is making us appreciate TV in a new light (1:06). In the fifth episode of ‘Better Call Saul,’ the show showcases Jimmy and Kim’s relationship in a way that stands in contrast to Walter and Skylar’s relationship in ‘Breaking Bad’ (15:23). And Reese Witherspoon’s character in ‘Little Fires Everywhere’ is very similar to her character in ‘Big Little Lies,’ but maybe that’s the point (30:32). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelly, and welcome to The Ringer Podcast Network. We hope The Ringer can provide you entertainment and companionship during this time. So as always, feel free to check out The Ringer.com, where we're still covering the latest in sports, pop culture, tech, and media. And the Ringer's YouTube channel can provide endless amounts of entertainment. You can find that at YouTube.com slash The Ringer. I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello, and welcome to The Watch.

My name is Chris Ryan. And I am an editor at the ringer.com. And joining me on the other line, he just got done reading the Virginia monologues. It's Andy Greenwald. Wait, wait, what happened in Virginia? It's what they call the vagina monologues in the book club. Oh, right. Little fires everywhere on Hulu, my guy.

The show I watched last night. Yeah, I had to explain my own intro because that's where we're at, day whatever. Can I tell you what I thought you were saying? I instantly assumed that the Virginia monologues was a piece of failed legislation James Madison introduced in the Continental Congress to suspend presidential elections. And that, like, it was a trending topic. Oh, yeah. Dude, the trending topics right now are really, really scary. Yet don't.

By the way, I don't know if I've been vague about this in our previous podcast. Don't look at Twitter. Stop it. Stop doing it. I'm sorry if you are a Twitter shareholder, but you're doing fine. Don't look at it. It's not helping. It's mostly just that like people will, like, it's like Alan Iverson was trending today. And I was like, oh my God, with half now, Alan Iverson.

Yeah. And it's just that like slam put a tweet up of like, remember what Alan Iverson did this 20 years ago? Sick. And I was just like, oh my God, how did that trend in this world? That seems helpful. That seems like good content right now. How are you doing, friend? How you doing over there?

You know, peaks and valleys, I would say. I think that for the most part, I'm doing well. I've been trying to get out and get some walks in. I've been listening to a lot of rap. Been digging deep in the crates on DJ Drama Gangster Girls' Mix tapes. Are those available somewhere, or do you still have your cassettes? I have a bunch. No, I never had cassettes.

They were all on CDs, but they're all pretty much available on Dat Piff. Oh, sure. Yeah. I'm a big fan of Dad Piff. I don't think I've been there since Thug Motivation, the prequel 103 or whatever came out. Yeah, but I was listening to the Feral One recently, and I was listening to Fabulous's.

There is no competition, too. So I bring this up because I think it's coming out this week. I went on Caramonica's pop cast on The Times to talk a little bit about what I'm listening to. So I've been walking around listening to rap, keeping my distance from fellow heads. I just kind of see, If I see a guy across the street, I just go, hey, I'm listening to Gangster Grills. And it's great for social distancing because people just scurry away.

You should just, like, shout DJ drama drops at people and see if they respond. You know? Yeah. I, you know, first of all, a hearty hello and respectful elbow bump to all of our listeners who are going through this. I'm glad to know we're all kind of going through this very strange time together. and that hopefully for many of us, you know, we're fortunate enough that that the isolation and the anxiety and the Twitter trending topics are our greatest discomfort at this particular moment. I want to just sort of speak up for the other part of society who is finding social distancing

to be the least isolating time of their lives because I'm coming to you live from the little house on the prairie homeschool. That's right. that I am a principal and sole employee of. So I have to say that as someone who generally, you know, prior to the writer's room or in production, works a solo beat, you know, whether, you know, we're at a desk with a computer writing things.

This is real, real social for me over here right now. So I wanted to ask you, I imagine that like day one starts and you were like, I am shaping a young person's mind. I am ready to stand and deliver. And then day four or five comes along. I don't know if I sent you that tweet. Did I send you this tweet where it's like everybody, I can't remember who said it,

but it was like basically a joke where it was like everybody who's homeschooling right now and taking pictures of their cool craft projects, holler at me on day five when your kid is binge watching the Punisher. Thank you for not sending that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that I appreciated the stand-and-deliver reference because on day one...

The writer of that joke was named Todd Levine or Todd Levine. I definitely thought of myself as kind of a gringo Jaime Escalante. You know, I think he and I have a lot of things in common. Our stories were both told in Los Angeles. That's the end of our similarities. Have you been doing math with your kids? Yeah, by the end of the day, I would say my vibe was more like Howard Hessman and head of the class,

which is a reference that I feel not confident that people are going to get. But, you know, kind of a chill guy, kind of a hanging with Mr. Cooper, if you will. I think we're trending downward. You know that Howard Hesman

and hanging with Mr. Cooper are different guys? Yeah, I was updating it on the fly from an 80s to a 90s, and then I can't go past that. I imagine, I think that I know vaguely that there was a warmly, considered teacher character on that boy meets world show that I never engaged with.

So maybe that's your reference for what a great job I'm doing. Well, if things keep going this way, I'm going to start offering, like, I'll just basically stand out on my porch and start doing open English classes for Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. I'm just like, look, guys, if you want to stand six feet apart and just sort of talk about. It's different. that's pretty much all I got to say. It's very, very different around here. I would say that, you know, I did have to get out of the house briefly the other evening to do the final sound mix of the last episode of Briar Patch, which was surreal and bittersweet and done with a great deal of distance, which was sad because I wanted to be hugging and back slapping and toasting with all the mixers who made this happen. And I wasn't able to do that, but I was so grateful for their work. And I think that was around the time when my wife, who's running a flourishing legal practice from the same room that I'm podcasting out of right now, said,

it's a good thing your job is done. It's done? Yeah, it's like, theoretically, you know, there are other projects that I could be working on and, you know,

other stuff that I'm developing. It's like, no, no, no. Here on the frontier, you know, there are those who do.

And those who can't do. They're those who teach. And that's, that's me. Also, I did want to tell you, because I don't think we've discussed this. You know, because I am like all writers or freelancers or whatever category we're in,

an inveterate procrastinator, I do actually owe stuff on other projects that I'm doing. And I decided a couple weeks ago that the real impediment to getting this done was a dedicated workspace. Because when I was in post, I was just sitting on couches in Gina's edit bay or Joe or Siegans edit bay. I know where to actually sort of be. And I believe longtime listeners of the serialized drama known as this podcast, podcast know that while I was in Albuquerque, Daddy's home office became a playroom. So I was like, okay, so what I need most is an office space. And I think you knew that I was doing this. And so, you know, I did due diligence and I, you know, I put on my, my big boy boots. And I rented an

office for myself. And then I moved my desk and all of my working belongings into it. And that was last week. And now you're in a child's chair with a Lenovo. Just kind of being like interior, scene one. Saying, well, the problem here, darling, is that the goose only has two legs, but all the other animals in the math problem bring four to the party. So that's how we end up with 28 legs total scene at the zoo. So, you know, we're keeping it moving. I am finding that the, you know, obviously I'm isolated here to the extent that everybody is.

I'm here with my wife. but the overall algebraic equation of my day is having a huge impact on how I react to stuff I watch at night. So last night, my wife and I, like, we had dinner, we had some drinks. We were just trying to get through it. And it was just like, all right, it's time. Let's watch Survivor.

And I reacted to Survivor last night as if it was the Eagles winning the Super Bowl six times, while smoking straight crystal blue persuasion. Like, I have not been that excited for the end of a competition. Since the day that the Eagles beat Tom Brady and the Patriots. Was it because... Because I have nothing else. There's nothing else to cheer for or think about or, like, you know,

oh, they won, they lost. It was like literally watching that last night was the high... Because that's what people are saying, right? It's like, I'm now going for walks. And when I take a walk, the jogger endorphin kicks in. Yes. And so that's what it was like watching Survivor, but for all of the sports in the world. Yes.

Well, I also, I'm glad it's just that. I was worried that you were just, like, existentially elated that someone had survived. Like, the final person was revealed. No, I was like, I was getting completely barbaric. I was like, yes, she cut her throat. I mean, I got to say this. I know you're hearing this everywhere, people who listen. to this podcast, but assuming, you know, we're all still allowed to do this, which we are,

go outside, stay away from people, go for a walk, go for a run. Your boy jogged four miles yesterday. And afterwards, I was like, should I donate some blood? Like, there's some antibodies in here that definitely, definitely could work. Yeah. I'm sure that somebody could do something with this, because this feels great. I'm just going to do it right now. And if somebody needs it, I'll have it. And then I got, I got, I got vials. I got room in the freezer. And then I got a text from Chris just listing the trending topics on Twitter and sent me back into a spiral. No.

Yeah. Do we talk about the other thing that you did that you panicked did that I'm very excited to talk about in a public forum? But I have to keep my voice down if I'm going to talk about it. Is that real? Well, I mean, she knows. Okay, so here's the thing. I'm so, nothing has made me happy during this difficult time. Aside from this.

Everybody who listened to this podcast knows that I love my wife. Okay? There's no question. And I would do anything for her. But a couple of days ago, maybe about a week ago, it seemed as if my wife might be going away for a while to go visit her mother. And so I was contemplating a very long time alone. And in a basically sort of fit, you know, like a fit of peak,

logged on and your boy may have bought a PS4 I'm so happy which is not something that's like it's not like I can't have that you know what I mean? Like I'm an adult I can make these decisions for myself

but it was more of a like wartime decision you know what I mean? Like if alone for months on end what should I spend my time doing? I could read all the books that I haven't read yet. I could write that screenplay

but I also could lead multiple European soccer clubs to glory playing FIFA 20 for upwards of 78 seasons, you know, in a matter of weeks. So I got all this stuff anticipating a certain kind of lifestyle. And now it's becoming apparent that that might, I may have left the gate a little early. I want to say, and I mean this sincerely, and I know I'm not the only person, certainly not the only Daddington listening to this podcast or Mommington. You know in prison movies when someone gets out? Yeah.

In all the other prisoners, even the ones who threatened that first prisoner on the yard on day one. They have like a one tier rolling down their eye and they just like give them a slow clap. Like the Native American in that pollution commercial. And they just clap because someone got out. And if someone could get out and run free, then there's chance for everyone. And that's how I felt when you told me that you had bought a video game system. I will likely never play a video game again for the rest of my life.

But the thought of you doing it, Chris, gave me wings. And I think listeners should know, they're not surprised by this, I bet, but you and I did some work on, like, FIFA 04 or 05. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, we had some rugged campaigns. You know, there were some ups and downs in the Bundesliga. And I mean that in all senses. We also played a soccer video game.

But that was fun. That was so exciting to me. I love it. The reason why I even did this was because Andy and I were texting a couple of days ago. And I promise we're going to get to TV. We're going to talk about Better Call Saul. We're going to talk about little fires everywhere. And we're going to talk about Briar Patch.

But just to end on this anecdote, you know, you wind up kind of sitting around thinking about like good times you've had, not because you're not going to have any going forward, but they kind of just, they get you through. You know what I mean? Like you just kind of have these pleasant memories and, I was thinking about a time in 2000 in Brooklyn when you and me and our buddy, Sean Howe, were in Sean's apartment above Yomie Taco on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, playing Perfect Dark on an N64 and listening to the W by Wu-Tang Clan.

Which had just been released. Yeah. Or I think actually we may have had an advanced copy of. Oh, that's probably right. We probably had a review copy of it. And was that the last night of our youth? That might have been. It might have been.

Oh, man. So, yeah, I just was thinking about that night, and I was like, that was pretty dope. And while Andy and Sean won't be able to come over and play games with me, maybe I should try to recreate that for myself. What's amazing about that night is I remember leaving that apartment with you at like 2.30 in the morning and saying, boy, that was a fun Friday night. We should do that all the time. And, Reader, we literally never did it again. that was 20 years ago well

you could come on over after all this is done and play some red dead redemption with me um let's get in you guys you want to talk about

Saul you don't want to talk about low fires first let's talk TV wherever you want to go yeah well let's talk about better call Saul

because I think that that is we've we've kind of done every episode and we are obviously so locked into that show right now and this is a great

episode, kind of a classic Saul episode that features a real, how to, you know, mechanical montage of like how Jimmy is able to shape the world around him by using every little bit of the

legal system and beyond to get his way. And I thought it was a particularly good Ray Seahorn episode, which I don't know how much more we can really sing her praises, but she's really, really great. This season and her performance in this episode where she's like, imitating her boss was particularly awesome.

I guess, you know, this is a mid-season point for the show, but pretty much, and I guess I wanted to ask you how you felt about the sort of distance between the two major plot points, because I know we've talked about it all being one show. But obviously, Mike is down in Mexico in this sort of weird purgatory, and Gus finally visits him at the end of the episode. but even though Mike and Jimmy talk on the phone in this episode, we still have some distance between the two. Is it quarantine me or is it to the Watch Barstool Edition to say that even just objectively, is it weird how attractive Kim was while imitating her boss, Kevin? No, it's a totally normal thing to say, I think. I think that it's the kind of thing maybe you don't give yourself time to notice

when you're not. self-social distancing. I was like, wow. It's the kind of type. It's the same kind of, it's basically your version of me being like, it's time to buy a PS4. I guess so.

I'm like, well, I guess this is what I like. I didn't know. I didn't know. But a couple days of being a teacher, that's where I'm at. Well, I wanted to start with one thing, which is your point about like

the sort of granular, detailed-driven storytelling that the Breaking Bad universe does so well, and especially as it's applied to Jimmy slash Saul. And, you know, a lot of the conversation comparing Breaking Bad to Better Call Saul, including the conversations we have about it, tend to go, tend to express the relationship between the two shows as one of greater specialization or articulation. That Breaking Bad was one thing. And Better Call Saul is even more delicate. It's painting a masterpiece, but now it's not building a ship in a bottle. It's painting something on a grain of rice.

This was an example of how the two shows have a great deal in common, not obviously just in terms of cast and creative team, but in terms of what they want to say about their protagonist. Because this was an episode, and I'm so grateful we got one of these. We get them every so often, and they tend to be a little broader in some ways in terms of the solness of it or a little bit more comic, which I think is welcome. But this was an example of Jimmy being Walter White-esque in that in his previous incarnation, he was restrained, not just restrained, but constrained and held back from being his greatest self. Now that he saw, much like Walter became Heisenberg, he is free to paint his masterpiece.

He's free to be a genius in the particular. crooked medium in which he excels, right? And so that's the thing that the show has always done so well. It's that while these characters quite literally break bad, it fills them with a joy and a freedom and that they're being their truest selves. There is no hesitation, you know? And so when Kim forces that confrontation, that public confrontation, uh, with Dennis Bucacaris, yeah. Dennis Butzikara's character. I'm always forgetting the name of the end of the episode. It's either Robert or Richard or something like that, yeah.

When she was back in her office recovering from what just happened, I was locked in on her hoping she would go back into that Texas accent. But beyond that, assuming that, you know, just sort of feeling empathy for that enormous anxiety she was feeling, and doesn't she feel nauseous? Doesn't she feel? But the truth is the thing that binds her and Jimmy is they kind of feel most alive when they're like free soloing, right? There's something out there when they're,

not constrained by society. And that is heady and intoxicating and kind of wild. I think in the same way that you're bringing up the idea of Jimmy in relationship to Walter White, you can look at the central relationship of Better Call Saul in relation to Skyler and Walter. And the amount of, you know, I think that Skyler was a really complicated character who was really unfairly treated by like the discourse around the show by the end of the show. but I think that part of the reason why that Jimmy Kim relationship is so fascinating is it's not really breaking bad it's like these people are already breaking a little bit

and they each have I feel like you can really watch the chess match but also the giving in to subtle addictions almost to the thrills of being other people and that that's what Kim Kim kind of swinging back and forth between working for two can carry or doing pro bono work and knowing that Jimmy is kind of the on ramp to victory in both of those worlds, that Jimmy's way ultimately gets results. But if Kim is concerned with feeling good when she gets home at the end of the day, no matter what, while she's with Jimmy or while she lives in the world that Jimmy creates, I don't know if that's possible. You know, and so she's kind of really pushing the limits right now where it's hard to see where the con ends in real

life begins with the two of them. But it's a different kind of central relationship than Breaking Bad Hat. I think there's no question, it's a great point to bring up. And I think there's no question that the Kim, Jimmy relationship is a considered corrective to the Skyler and Walt relationship. And in the way that they treat Kim with her agency, with her willingness to be a part of things, with her own complexity, she is never scolding him. You know, she has she has her own business, quite literally. And her reasons for continuing to stay with him are quite complicated, but they're also related to the fact that one of the crucial differences, I think, between the two shows is that both our principal characters here are already broken. I mean, they were broken from the beginning,

as we learned from Kim's backstory. And certainly, as we know from Jimmy's backstory and his relationship with everyone, both of them have been trying to be good and trying to behave in an appropriate way and bend themselves into the systems that they felt would give them approval or security or whatever the thing was. And that mask is slipping, right? It just doesn't fit. Yeah, for sure. I mean, you know what actually is one of my favorite things about this past episode. And it really, I started thinking about previous episodes through this lens is how they show off the state of their relationship in the little actions that they have around the house. like if Kim is wary of Jimmy

then their meals and their discussions about what they're going to eat for dinner or what they might watch for a movie or where they might move eventually are really tense like Kim is very withholding with when he's like oh you want to watch after hours and she's just like that's one of my favorites but I might be busy

and when they're really rolling when they have a scheme going and Jimmy's got all the tubs out and everything and they've kind of figured something out obviously like they slept together obviously like there's just like a little bit more like let's have a beer there's a lot more domestic gestures to one another that are much warmer and I just think that it's a detail that I don't really notice a lot of other shows

taking into consideration where if you're going to return to the same set where you're going to have Jimmy and Kim in that apartment the behavior needs to match the emotional content of the moment and it's such a brilliant subtle they don't even need to have it in there but if you're watching it actually really makes their relationship that much more three-dimensional and layered. I agree. And I would also say about this episode, which overall I just thought was a treat, really enjoyed it. Once again, as you said a moment ago, the show is, but not once again, the show continues to be bifurcated. I mean, even to the point where Jimmy needed Mike and couldn't

get him and found Mr. X instead. And that was a really funny scene in the back of the nail salon. But it worked particularly because the show is giving us on two tracks the two things that it's been excelling at providing. One is what's going on with Kim and the sort of current plot of the show, which is, you know, yes, Jimmy's becoming Saul, Jimmy did become Saul. I think many of us who are invested in the original content of the show are very much invested in Kim at this point as the main character of our interest. the Mike plot on a separate track was almost entirely backfilling Breaking Bad Story and Breaking Bad Plot. And that's okay too.

You know, it felt very clearly delineated and I have no problem being reminded of certain essential facts about Mike Ermentrout facts that I could have told you probably before the episode even aired. Like, no matter where he is, no matter what he's doing, no matter how many times he's been stabbed

or stitched up again or stabbed and stitched up again, if there is something broken, if there's something that is shoddly done, he will fix it. You know, as evidenced by that, by the windows,

yeah. The windowsill. That's not breaking any new ground, as we've said before, about Gus cleaning the friar last week. It's just exulting kind of in a well-known and well-understood

and well-articulated characters' personality. And there's something very enjoyable about that. And also kind of, honestly, kind of comforting. You know, you know where the floor is with the show always. And if the floor is just Gus Fring and Mike Erman Trout having a loaded conversation by a fountain, that's a pretty enjoyable 50 minutes of TV. And everything else, all the highs are gravy.

Yeah, I mean, I thought it was interesting that they finally articulated what it is that binds Gus and Mike together throughout not only this series, but what will go on to bind them, I guess, chronologically within the show in Breaking Bad, which is this idea of revenge. Yeah, I wonder if you have an idea of like what binds Jimmy and Kim together? Resentment, right? Yeah. I mean, I think that that this idea that Kim, I mean, well, let's take it all the way back to the series. Because one thing that I promise you I'm not good at and listeners have definitely ready to fact check me,

I've enjoyed every episode of the show I watch, but something about the nature in which we've watched it, you know, by taking a long time off and then catching up on the, I guess it was the third. season, I don't remember a lot of things that have happened in the show in ways that I'm not proud of. But I will say that from the beginning, when Jimmy was, you know, in the mail room or a clerk or whatever he was doing at Hamlin, Hamlin and McGill at the very beginning, she was the one who was nice to him. And she was the one who was nice to him, partly because she was one of the few people there who hadn't had things handed to her. And she was one of the few people there who could relate to him on some level of being an outsider, feeling like he didn't belong or just being

blue collar or whatever it was. And ultimately, I think that's the desire to get one over on these bastards. Even when the bastard in question is a man who has lifted her up to professional heights that other people were denying her, who, you know, is so impressed by her genuine skill and acumen, which is real that he's totally blind to this obvious grift that our boy Dennis Buccikaris, which for some reason of all the names to want to say instead of an easy character name, weird choice by us. Well, it sticks with you.

I will say for real Dennis Butzakaris heads know that I have always known his name because I remember when that dude was playing Woody Allen in the Woody and Mia story, a telemovie from the 90s. So one that I am sure has not aged great and is not available on any streaming services. Is that like sort of like a Paul Mizersky type romp

or is it, is it like, It was like there wasn't a period that you and I remember, well, in the 80s and 90s when something happened in the news, it was salacious or tabloid-y. They would make a sort of movie of the week about it for sure. And like a relatively upstanding network would do it, right? Like CBS, this wasn't like a lifetime thing. Anyway, so that's ultimately what's going to bind them.

Of course, what's interesting is that what Kim would rather be doing, and this is maybe projecting a little bit ahead to where we're headed. Kim wants to turn the tables on the back. bastards and work out this resentment and stuff because all she really wants to do is help people. All she actually wants to do, but society and potentially debt, whatever it may have been, has put her on this other path. What Jimmy wants to do is keep turning the tables on bastards. He just wants to keep going. Yeah. Jimmy's a grinder. And like he's probably like, he lives off of the high, you get the contact high of action. And there's something that we're

watching now happen in slow motion, which is a thing to say about a show that moves as gradually as Better Call Saul, what is the Howard thing doing to him? You know, and it's almost like, it feels like it's giving him some weird pleasure, you know, to have Howard dangling on a string and Howard not knowing what he, Jimmy really thinks of Howard, what he's really done to him, you know, there's something quite perverse and interesting about that. And again, it's a tribute to the show that something that's psychologically rich is fifth on the call sheet for our conversation about it. For sure.

Let's get into little fires everywhere really quickly. How about that? Set the table. I wish, by the way, if we were in our regular studio and super producer Kai McMullen had a microphone at her disposal as opposed to being in this kind of... She wasn't recording from the bottom of a cave, you mean?

She's in a Google Hangout cave, self-muted right now. But right before we started recording, She dropped the bomb that she's read the book Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Eng and enjoyed it. And I would love to have some of her insight now because I was only familiar with this book as a bestseller and something that a lot of people I know really liked and enjoyed and respected. Came into this otherwise totally cold. But so set the table for those of us who don't know a lot here, Chris. Yeah.

So this- Take on Caius mantle. They put the first three episodes of this show up on Hulu already. I've seen several episodes. It's based on a 2017 novel by Celeste Engel, like Andy said. And if I had to sort of broadly say one thing that's really interesting to me about this on an industry level, it's that this is an example of a thing that the movies used to do very well, which was capture a, you know, they identify a project or a book that is really burning up the charts or really burning up bestseller lists and say, this needs to be fast-tracked.

People are really into it. The awareness of this thing is really high. and we think we can get really famous people to be a part of it. And that used to be things like The Firm or Bridges of Madison County or, you know, your Scott Turrow books or even Michael Crichton books or whatever. But now we're seeing these things get translated into streaming television properties. And by that very nature, they're going to be slightly expanded. They're going to be kind of maybe more like the experience of watching a book.

So I thought that that was notable because this show, while it has some very soapy elements to it is definitely pretty expansive. You know what I mean? It has like a pretty huge purview in terms of what it's talking about like things that are happening in society. Otherwise, you know, I think that we can really talk about this because gosh, it is very television. It is very TV. And despite, you know, Lynn Shelton, Reese Witherspoon, Carrie Washington, Rosemary DeWitt, all these names that are kind of associated with it, I don't mean that as a pejorative term either. I just mean I was sort of struck by, I think probably because of watching big little lies and, you know, some of the other things that I've seen Reese Witherspoon be a part of.

It was sort of almost just, oh, and Morning Show, it was almost disorienting to see something that felt so, so much like save a few curse words and sex scenes could have been easily on ABC. Yeah, I mean, it even features Mr. Television himself, Josh Pacey, Twitter Jackson, in the Adam Scott Memorial Reese Witherspoon's husband and underwear role. I agree with everything you're saying. There's something that I was bumping on a little bit in the first episode of the show. And I should say up front, I don't think it's for me. I'm probably not going to stick with it. But I do find it pretty fascinating from an industry point of view. And I commend the enormous talents of all the people involved in it, which was that it struck some very, very broad notes.

Which, again, it's not a problem. But it really came out at us in the first episode by saying, this person is this, this person is that. Yeah, and for anybody who hasn't seen the first episode or any of the first three episodes, I'll just briefly set it up where it's essentially a period piece set in the late 90s in Shaker Heights, Ohio. Reese Witherspoon plays a character that I think you'd be broadly familiar with if you've seen some of her other type A. Some of her other type A performances going back to election and up to Big Little Eyes. where she plays a journalist at the local Shaker newspaper,

who's got a family of four and a husband, a nice house, and is very active in the community and is very like kind of go-getter. And into this seemingly perfect life, even though it's not so perfect on the surface, you can see that she's got some issues with her youngest daughter, comes Carrie Washington's character named Mia and her daughter, Pearl, who drive into town, and kind of insert themselves into the Reese Wetherspoon character,

Elena's life. and the show is about the ripple effects both going forwards and backwards of their intersection in their lives and some of the things that they have in common and some of the things that they don't have in common. So broadly speaking, I think elements like, you know, questions about race and class and gender come up. And it is a, I think, an issue-driven show

and also a very plot, soapy, melodrama-driven show. So it's trying to do a lot and it's still trying to like, you know, basically serve the best interests of the stars involved. So I thought it was really, it's kind of interesting to watch it operate in that way. Yeah, I think that's what all I wanted to say was it's taking big swings at big topics with big stars. And the way that it came out of the gate really actually reminded me of the way this would have been adapted into a two hour and 26 minute movie in 1997. And I actually made me wonder if it would have been better served as that, you know,

because the thought of multiple hours of the kind of like, this is a planned community. And then a moment later, someone's saying to Elena, like, you certainly don't leave anything to chance, do you? Like, okay. I get it. I get it. Someone's here to set a, dare I say, a little fire here in this very, very rigid.

Little metaphors everywhere, yeah. Retired, fire retardant community. So that's me just talking, you know, basically out my ass about the deliourn. system here, which is probably not at all fair or just. I do want to say, and I think Alison Herman touched on this really well in her piece that was up on the Ringer today, I mean, I don't know if anyone has taken advantage of what TV has become like Reese Witherspoon has. You know, obviously, you could say that there are filmmakers, whether it's David Lynch being like, I'm just going to do what I want now, and suddenly it's in vogue and Showtime and the CBS Corporation will let me do it. Or

now we're hearing Netflix is also letting him do it, which is great for him. Or someone like Lynn Shelton, who 10 years ago was directing Mumblecore movies in the Pacific Northwest and is now tasked with basically being the producing director on this big glossy show and being a really nice job. And made an amazing movie. I think last year it came out sort of trust with Mark Marin. I definitely recommend if people haven't seen, they should check it out. So that's taking advantage of the medium in one way and the opportunities it provides.

But for Reese Witherspoon to basically be like, okay, I'm going to try something here, analogy that's coming to me as we're saying. it. You talked about our personal basketball hero Alan Iverson a while ago. Alan Iverson is our favorite player because he was really, really, really, really, really good at one thing. Two things. Scoring basketball and getting hit and getting back up again. None of those things necessarily have like statistical value now in this post moneyball era of basketball, right? People, I think, scoff at him. He wasn't a, you know, his PR rating wasn't good or whatever, but he was really the best at doing the thing that he was good at. And it was

dazzling to watch. Rees Witherspoon, I'm trying to think of another performer who is as keenly aware of his or her own gifts and what they are really, really good at and what they do that resonates with others. A lot of actors run from the thing that they do, you know, which is what, and good for them, you know, if that's their, that's their trip, like Will Ferrell being like, you've seen me be Ron Burgundy. It's more interesting for me to try to do other things for a while, right? Great. Reese Witherspoon was just like, okay, so I played in a league that doesn't necessarily value the thing that I do as much anymore. I'm going to go to this other place where basically I can just throw pickup games. I can just have my own rucker two to three times a year and do what I do.

And in so doing also lift up other people and lift up other projects and produce them and blah, blah, blah, and give people opportunities and jobs. It's kind of unprecedented and amazing. And so to see her doing this again, my first thought was, okay, I see Reese Witherspoon as playing Reese Witherspoon. But it's not like she's being typecast by anyone other than herself. She chose this property and wanted to play this part because she knew she could do the shit out of it. Yeah. It's interesting. No, it's a fascinating career for her because like, I guess to me, you know, I think that Wild was probably the last time that I was like, oh, this is really kind of

pushing the envelope about what I kind of see her as as like a public-facing. figure in terms of the kind of performance that she was giving. And even though she plays a slightly different person, like not quite the type A. I mean, she's very type A in morning show, but she's obviously like the foil that she has in that is Jennifer Aniston, so it's a little bit different. But yeah, I mean, it's watching her kind of, kind of see the chessboard and also becoming this kind of like mini, you know, like this like new Scott Rudden where she's just like, I'm just going to get all these bestselling books and just move them into production. auction on these streaming services. Well, it's great to mention because Scott Rudin, one of the most

powerful producers in Hollywood and has transitioned really well to TV and does great stuff in both mediums. But it was kind of a, I was going to say it was a joke. It's not a joke. I don't know people are laughing about this, but I think you and I would even note before we were even podcasting that when there was a great American novel published, Scott Rudin would invariably snap up the rights. And a lot of those projects, whether they were Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections or Michael Shaybon's Cavalier and Clay never got made because you couldn't make them as movies. So they languished. And then eventually both of the corrections they tried to do on TV with Noah Bombach and that famously didn't come together.

Cavalier and Clay, Sheaubon is now doing himself for CBS, whether it's Showtime or All Access. I'm not clear. But the point being, so he's this powerful guy, but he didn't always get it done. And Reese is getting it done. And you mentioned Wild, a movie I really liked a lot and I really liked her performance in. she won best actress for that, her second Oscar. And at that point, I mean, you wonder, did she look at it? She's got a happy family life.

She's won two Oscars. She sees the game board of movies. And it's like, I'm good. I'm good. I mean, she certainly didn't have anything else to prove in that field. And as transitioned into this, it's pretty amazing. Here's what I want to ask. And I mean this genuinely and sincerely, what are you watching for?

Not like, what are you looking for it to do plot-wise or performance-wise? but when you've sat down to watch these two or three episodes that you've watched, what was, what were you enjoying? What was tickling you? Curious to see how the stories get back, how they fill the stories out, and where these two women came from, and what led them to this place.

And honestly, like, it is a pretty involving melodrama. So I'm just kind of like, oh, like, what happens next with this baby? And what happens next with this fire? And what happens next with, like, I don't want to give anything away that is in future episodes. I mean, I, but just, I find it like an involving escapist kind of piece of programming that isn't, you know, it isn't science fiction. But it's pretty, it's pretty, I find it pretty distracting. You can give some things away. The title gives it away. Because if the show was called, well, it's in the first scene that there's a fire, yes. If the show is called, where are these little fires? And you're suddenly like, dude, they're everywhere. Yeah. That's right. There's so many of these fires. But as we know, it could be like a, it could be more metaphorical than that. Look at you. Let's get into Briar Patch a little bit

because I wanted to talk to you a little bit about the sixth episode. We don't have like a official Breyer Patch Thursday guest this week. People, if they're catching up on the show, I recommend that they go back also and listen to watch episodes where we've had people from behind and in front of the camera on the pod talking about their experiences, making the show with Andy.

And then also there is like an official Briar Patch offshoot podcast called Zoo Town, which we haven't talked about in a while, that people can subscribe and check out, which is a really cool added experience to watching the show. This one I just kind of wanted to ask, and if you haven't watched this episode yet,

make sure you catch up. But what was it like shooting a huge action set piece? Hard. It was really hard. This one was the most challenging episode, I think, all the way across the board. You know, it was marked, I think, when we first got the writer's room together,

I described it as the purge. I wanted to do an action episode. People who have read the book know that none of these things happen. This is probably the one that has, I believe Eva, who was on earlier, who is the co-opee of the show, looked at all the episodes and every episode had at least something from the book. And this is the only episode that didn't. There's not a single piece of this that exists in the book. Okay.

And so we wanted to do something big. and we wanted to do something surprising. And, you know, this was, of all the episodes, I probably learned the most from this one. And one of the things that I learned was, you know, you can write. And I'd begun to learn this in other episodes, but this was really where the lesson hit, which is you can write anything.

And you can dream as big as you want. And you can, you know, you can put anything down on the page. And, you know, I was really supported by a studio in a network who were excited by everything coming out of the room. And then you get to Albuquerque and you sit with people like Richard, who is our production, designer who we spoke to on the podcast the other week. And you speak to people like Eric Crary, who is a great co-op on the show. And basically they're like, okay, no, but seriously.

Because how are you going to do this? Okay, this entire thing is happening in the dark. This entire thing is happening at night. This entire thing is happening in a pre-existing location that we had established as Bain's Mansion, where Jake Spivey lives in the pilot, meaning we couldn't suddenly change it. We'd already been filming there for multiple episodes. And as I think we said with Richard the other week, this is a functioning rental for events in an Airbnb. So we had very limited things we could actually do inside of it, let alone have a gun battle there.

So there are a lot of moving pieces. And in the spirit of making things possible within our limited budget, people like Eric and Richard are nudging certain things and suggesting certain things. And if you move this piece here and you move that piece there. And then what I didn't really realize is if you start unraveling, a sweater, pretty soon you're just going to have a pile of thread. Yeah. So all of that is to say, it was wildly challenging.

And we were shooting it concurrently with five as a block with the great Colin Buxey directing. And, you know, just super challenging across the board to be able to communicate the scale of something and communicate the geography of something and pull it off. And I think it's a, you know, I think we were able to get away with it. And I think it's a testament to Raina McClendon, who's a brilliant writer who wrote the episode and to Joe Leonard, who was with me for hours and hours and hours editing and re-editing it. This episode definitely has the most reorganization of anything. So when you say reorganization, do you mean within the episode or pulling things from different places? Okay, so within the episode.

So for example, there's a scene early on where Colder is at the mansion and Brian Garrity's character, Gene Colder, and he has a scene with my friend Matt Oberg, who plays Sergeant Mock, who's just pulled up. Yeah. That used to be in the third act, and now it's in the first act. So things like that, like really pulling things and cutting things and restitching things together to try to get them a little bit more clear and to give them a through line.

So, yeah, it was, I still sort of can't believe we pulled it off. It was really hard. What's it like to have all those, like, kind of machine guns going off when you're filming those? Well, there's limits. especially when you're in right on the border of a very fancy neighborhood. One thing that people might not know about Albuquerque is that there are a lot of, I mean, every place has a lot of surrounding neighborhoods in towns, but there's a town called Los Renshos of Albuquerque. And that's

where a lot of the big, beautiful houses are. And another funny thing about Los Renshos is that while Albuquerque has rebuilt itself as Tomolnywood, the mayor of Los Rensh has continued to insist that no filming can happen in his community. So we found this beautiful house that we loved that was literally on the border of Los Ranchos. And so we definitely could not be shooting off even blanks after a certain hour. So we only had a couple takes of those. And also just little things. Like, it's not actually a compound.

So that wall that the guys are scaling in the beginning is made of plaster and is about as big as the frame to kind of cheat it and stuff like that. So that was one thing. The other thing is like getting Jay Ferguson ready to do a, super intense this fight with a guy named Tate Fletcher who was in the Mandalorian. Oh, really? Yeah. He's in the first episode. Professionally a stuntman and is twice the size of Jay. So, fun story about that, Jay was, and he wouldn't mind me saying this, so nervous about doing

this scene that he was really struggling. And it was scheduled to happen, I think, on a Tuesday. And on a Monday, we get to set and we found out that Rosario, who had been traveling back and forth to be with her father, who was unwell in L.A. wasn't able to get on a flight. wasn't going to be there until that afternoon. And so you can't lose a day of production. So guess what that means? It means, get Jay in here. We're doing the fight today. Right. He later said that he was grateful that we surprised him. Because he didn't have to think about it. Because it wasn't like he had the time to be nervous. Yeah. And then it was over. That's great. All right. So folks can catch up with that on demand. You can get it on Amazon and iTunes.

There's also they can watch it through the like the USA site, right? Yeah. You can go in USA Network.com. There's a USA app you can get for your very devices. I hope people do. I'm really, you know, we were taking chances in episodes four, five, and six in a lot of directions. And I am really proud of where the season goes. I think our best episodes are the next four. And I think it finishes strong. Since we don't currently have the ability to have guests, I feel like maybe one of these weeks we could do like a Q&A. Sure. And talk about it more specifically if people have questions about things because I really wanted to have, and maybe we still will be able to, but I really wanted to have people like our brilliant costume,

or Risa Garcia, or our wonderful composer, my good friend, Giancarlo Volcano, just to talk about what they do and the amount of work that they put in each episode, which is really sometimes hard to see. So, yeah, we can open up for questions. Yeah, also from fans of the show, if they have any questions about plot stuff, which I know we haven't really gotten two in the weeds on. We've mostly been talking about the production of it. So, yeah, and I feel like this might be a good time for people to, if they have interest in how the sausage gets made, because at less, time I went down to the market sausages were in short supply. So we can provide some of that.

So I think what we'll do on Monday if people want to get ready for that is Dev's episode four. We'll do my version of talking about Westworld episode two. We can also touch on maybe the plot against America, which has gone up on HBO. And we'll take care of whatever other business we have. And then we'll keep going on this Saul schedule of Thursdays. And if folks have shows that they're watching or if they have shows that they'd like us to hit on, let us know because Andy and I have a little bit more free time around the house. Particularly if they are education-driven shows.

Yeah, that's a good point. Set in the heart of every home, which is the classroom. I would also say, I'm going to put this out to you, Chris, as a thought exercise. The greatest thing so far today was Liam Gallagher tweeting and his brother Noel saying, look, mate, once this is all over, we should just get the band back together for a charity gig. It was also this, only the second best Liam Gallagher headline of the COVID-19 era, which the first one was, I can't, I don't even know where I saw this, but it was Liam Gallagher worried he had coronavirus. Turns out his house was just too hot. Quote, it was scary and confusing. What a legend. So I wanted to put that to you, and maybe we could put this out here to our fans and friends in the larger watchverse. pie in the sky what completely unlikely

cultural event or reunion or happening would you like to see come out of this once we are on the other side of this and we are going to be on the other side of this what would you like to see happen who would you like to see brought together in the name of hopefully in the name of charity

yeah okay so we can talk about that and a bunch of other stuff next week until then thank you guys for listening and I hope everybody stay safe out there Be well, Beranskys.